Search - Thomas Tallis, Chapelle du Roi :: Thomas Tallis: Music for Queen Mary

Tallis' seven-voice Christmas Mass Puer natus est isn't typical Tudor church music: the Credo is missing, there are no extended sections for reduced voices and no parts for the high trebles that distinguish English sacred music of the period. Still, it's a gorgeous piece, with full, radiant chords and a remarkable air of joyful tranquillity, and it gets a glowing performance from this young English choir. While they don't reconstruct an entire Mass, they do sing (unusually sweetly) the main chant items proper to Christmas Day. In contrast to the atypical Mass is the very typically English Gaude gloriosa, a votive antiphon (an extra-liturgical prayer to a saint, usually the Virgin) with many reduced-voice sections, including a fabulous passage for divided high trebles and altos. --Matthew Westphal